Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 165:659 (Jul 2008)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Jefferson P. Webster

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BSac 165:659 (July-September 2008) p. 354

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of

Dallas Theological Seminary

Jefferson P. Webster

Editor

“Who Can Be Saved?” Avery Cardinal Dulles, First Things, February 2008, 17–22.

In this essay, adapted from his Laurence J. McGinley Lecture delivered on November 7, 2007, at Fordham University, Dulles answers the question from his Roman Catholic perspective. This is not a survey of approaches but an explanation of a particular theological position. Dulles begins with a brief summary of New Testament teaching that leads to this conclusion: “According to the primary Christian documents, salvation comes through personal faith in Jesus Christ, followed and signified by sacramental baptism” (pp. 17-18). On the fate of those who have never heard the gospel Dulles concludes that “the New Testament is almost silent” but insists that for justification, “both Jews and Gentiles must rely on faith in Jesus Christ, who expiated the sins of the world on the cross” (p. 18).

A brief summary of Christian tradition from the Fathers until the twentieth century demonstrates hopefulness about the possibility of salvation for those who have not heard of Christ, especially in Thomas Aquinas and the sixteenth-century Dominicans, Melchior Cano and Domingo de Soto, as well as their contemporary, Albert Pighius. This hopefulness became dogma in the Second Vatican Council, which “taught that the Catholic Church was the all-embracing organ of salvation and was equipped with the fullness of means of salvation. Other Christian churches and communities possessed certain elements of salvation and truth that were, however, derived from the one Church of Christ that subsists in the Catholic Church today. For this reason God could use them as instruments of salvation” (p. 20). But these other communities remain dependent on the Catholic Church, since God “made the Catholic Church necessary for salvation, and all who were aware of this had a serious obligation to enter the Church in order to be saved. God uses the Catholic Church not only for the redemption of her own members but also as an instrument for the redemption of all. Her witness and prayers, together with the Eucharistic sacrifice, have an efficacy that goes out to the whole world” (p. 20).

According to Dulles, Vatican II insists that “Christ is the one mediator of salvation” but holds a “generally hopeful view of the prospects of non-Christians for salvation. Its hopefulness, however, is not unqualified” (p. 20). Paul VI and John Paul II both “made it clear that sufficient grace is offered to all and that God will not turn away those who do everything within their power to find God and li...

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